John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 42:14

"I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: [now] will I cry out like a travailing woman; I will gasp and pant together." — Isaiah 42:14 (ASV)

I have kept silence. The Prophet addresses the temptations that commonly cause us great uneasiness when God delays His aid. We are tempted by impatience and dread that His promises are false. We consider it unreasonable that God should be silent and, so to speak, fall asleep while the wicked behave arrogantly; that He should be indifferent while they burn with eagerness to do evil; and that He should overlook their crimes while they keenly pursue every kind of cruelty. When their minds were distressed and almost overwhelmed, the Prophet wished to comfort them, so that they might not think that God had forsaken them, even though everything appeared to be desperate.

For a long time. He expressly mentions “the great length of time” so that their hearts might not languish through the tedious delay. For when they had been broken down by almost incessant calamities since the death of Jehoshaphat, it was very hard and distressing to spend seventy years in captivity. Nor was even this the end of their afflictions. Therefore, they needed to be carefully admonished that although God does not immediately send relief, believers will still suffer nothing by the delay, provided that they wait with patience.

By these words He also rebukes unbelievers who, trusting to His forbearance, freely indulged in every kind of wickedness. Therefore, God declares that, although He has refrained and been a silent spectator, He is not on that account deprived of His power.

Like a woman in labor. By this metaphor He expresses astonishing warmth of love and tenderness of affection, for He compares Himself to a mother who singularly loves her child, though she brought him forth with extreme pain. It may be thought that these things are not applicable to God; but His ardent love toward us can be expressed in no other way than by such figures of speech. He must therefore borrow comparisons from known objects to enable us to understand those things which are unknown to us; for God loves very differently from men—that is, more fully and perfectly—and, although He surpasses all human affections, yet nothing that is disorderly belongs to Him.

Besides, He also intended to intimate that the redemption of His people would be a kind of birth, so that the Jews might know that the grave would serve them for a womb, and that thus, in the midst of corruption, they might entertain the hope of salvation. Although He produced a new Church for Himself without pain or effort, yet, to exhibit more fully the excellence of His grace in this new birth, He not inappropriately attributes to Himself the cry of “a woman in labor.”

I will destroy and swallow at once. Because that comparison of a woman in labor might somewhat diminish the majesty and power of God, the Prophet decided to add a different sentiment here. Thus, as far as it relates to love, he says that God resembles a mother; but as far as it relates to power, he says that God resembles a lion or a giant.